I’m a follower of Jon Acuff, who started out with the blog Stuff Christians Like and moved on to write a lot of other stuff. One of his recent posts was on church worker burnout. Here’s the funny thing: #6 seems to be an ongoing issue for us, and yet it’s not a burnout issue at all. We truly love being with our church family during the holidays, special events, etc. How does it not become an issue? Because we hold tightly to a day off and plan ahead for special times together. We do our best to set aside time as a couple to spend together away from church stuff.

So this weekend is one of those times when church and family collide. Because we’re fast heading towards the holidays, this was the only Saturday to schedule a new member retreat unless we waited until January. And it’s also Consecration Sunday, when everyone turns in their offering pledges for the new year. I’m thrilled that we get to spend this weekend with members new and old, celebrating the future together. But it’s made it a bit complicated to do something for our anniversary.

This Sunday we’ll celebrate 12 years of marriage. I can’t believe it’s been that many years, but it has. What’s even more unbelievable to me is that tomorrow it will be 17 years since our first date (easy to remember since it’s also my mother-in-law’s birthday). We’ve known each other for about 18 years. Is that possible? I can’t begin to fathom it. But then again, I’m still reeling from the knowledge that a girl from my first youth group just had a baby last week (the old-fashioned way, by being married first). In my mind she should still be 16, but that was nine years ago.

Anyway, with all of this celebrating at church and together, I’m really hoping I can find a bit of time to do laundry. Especially since our gift to each other for this anniversary and Christmas are the new washer and dryer that are being hooked up tomorrow!

(Really, when it comes to finding joy, it’s about the little things, isn’t it?)